


She Thinks

by lily_lovely



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen, Thinkiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_lovely/pseuds/lily_lovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She likes the squares in it. Set during early Season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Thinks

Echo looks at the board. She likes the squares on it.

They make a pattern. The pattern makes sense. Red square, white square, red square, white square.

The man smiles at her. It's nice when he smiles at her.

She trusts him, but she doesn't know why. She thinks maybe there should be a reason.

"So you line up your pawns in the second row, like this."

She remembers him saving her. He always saves her, every time—he's always there.

"Why?"

She tries to focus—what was she doing, why did she need saving—but it's hard to think.

"I'm not really sure. Because those are the rules."

This used to make sense. There are rules. And she follows them. To be her best...

"Why are those the rules?"

...but it doesn't make sense anymore.

"Well, someone invented the game, and they decided how it should be played." The man's smile is bigger now. It makes her happy.

She tries to forget about the confusion—she wants to be happy, all the time, like before. She's not as happy anymore, but she has to pretend to be.

Acting unhappy makes you go far, far away. To a place with no sky.

"You make me happy. What's your name?"

He laughs. The sound is deep and warm. She can feel it in her fingers. "Boyd."

She nods. It fits in her head. She's heard it before. "Please teach me this. I want to remember."

His eyebrows move higher on his head. "Okay, Echo. Put your queen—this one—on this square in the back."

She moves the piece to where his finger is. And she smiles.

She's going to learn the rules.

***  
The doctor smiles at her. It's not warm like Boyd's smile—it feels cold. And sad. That makes her sad.

The doctor pokes a thing into her ear. It tickles. "What are you going to do today, Echo?"

Echo smiles. The thought makes her happy. "I am going to play chess with Boyd. He's teaching me the rules."

The doctor pauses and takes the thing out. "You...what?"

"I'm going to play chess with Boyd. Did you not hear me?"

"No, I heard you, I'm just a little...confused."

"I get confused sometimes." Echo pauses—she wants to tell her more, but she doesn't think she should. "But not very often."

The doctor is looking at her. She's not smiling anymore. Echo wants her to smile again. "Is something wrong?"

"No, Echo, don't worry about it, I'm just thinking about something."

Echo swings her legs. She wants to reach out and touch her, but the doctor didn't like it last time. "I worry about you."

The doctor turns away. "You don't need to."

"You're sad. I don't like it when people are sad."

"You're in perfect shape, Echo, you can go—play chess with Boyd now."

She feels funny. "I like chess."

The doctor's smile is small. "I know."

***  
Echo holds the chess set in her hands. She rubs the corners of the box with her thumbs.

She sets it down on the table. Boyd is not here. She opens the box.

She knows she has done this before. She knows that she is not supposed to remember that, just like she is not supposed to remember Boyd's name.

She frowns at the blank board. There are flashes, little lightning bolts in her head—_like the ones that tore down that beautiful tree, somewhere, she sat in it for a long time, it smelled like new beginnings_—of where the pieces should go. How she should move them.

Slowly she takes the pieces out, and lines them up to the side of the board.

_So you line up your pawns in the second row, like this._

She sets up the pieces with shaking hands. When she's finished, she knows that they are all in the right spaces. And she knows that she could move them all the way they should be moved. She could win a game without Boyd's help. She thinks she would.

She feels proud and scared.

***  
Boyd hasn't come today. She decides to look for him.

She finds him in the hall near the showers. She doesn't understand why he's standing here—he doesn't shower with them.

"Boyd? Are you going to play chess with me? You said you would today."

Boyd's face is shining. She thinks it's wet—_like when she clutched at him, both bleeding in the forest, his face was wet then too_—crying, that's it. He's crying. He must be sad.

"Why does chess make you sad?"

"I can't play chess with you anymore, Echo. I'm sorry." His voice sounds scratchy.

"Why not?"

He turns away from her. "Because you're not supposed to...remember these things. To be able to figure things out. All the other Act—everyone else has to be taught it again, each time." He turns his head again to look at her. "And you shouldn't remember my name."

She thinks she has never seen him look this sad, but the look is familiar on his face. Other people have seen him this way before.

"So...you won't play with me because it makes me different?"

"I don't want to...I can't lose you, Echo."

She looks up at him. She thinks about how confused and sad she has been. She thinks about how bad this makes her feel—there are things, bad things, on the edges of her mind, things she doesn't want to remember, but she's starting to.

She thinks she hates it.

And she thinks that people have started noticing—Boyd and the doctor have.

She thinks maybe...if she makes them see how confused she is, they'll take it away. With the chair. And she can be happy, and Boyd will be just a man, and she will not know how to play chess.

"You won't."


End file.
